Casanova 20, or, Hot world A heterosexual novel

Davis (X) unfurls a fascinating if at times frustrating narrative of art and desire. Adrian, 29, is so beautiful that people follow him on the street in New York City, and he takes any lover he wants, man or woman. Suddenly, with spring fever in the air amid the first wave of Covid-19 vaccinations in 2021, he finds he's either lost his beauty or people no longer see him. He books an appointment with therapist Lola and tells her how "it kind of feels like I'm disappearing." Meanwhile, in Northern California, Adrian's painter friend, Mark, is dying of a mysterious undiagnosed illness that previously claimed the lives of his mother and sister. He invites Adrian to visit, and Davis adds intrigue and subtle connective tissue with the cache of VHS tapes left behind by Mark's sister, notably one entitled "Hot World," which Adrian and Mark view together. These videos depict strange and surreal scenes such as "a woman draped like Salome" dancing while "Behind her, an alcazar stretches black against the dunes blurred by the setting sun." The main plot line eventually resolves as the pair grapple with their mortality. Despite being a bit unfocused, this ethereal work holds the reader's attention. Agent: Julia Kardon, HG Literary. (Dec.)Correction: A previous version of this review misquoted the line about the alcazar.

Two friends face their own erasure in this post-pandemic meditation on love, sex, and mortality. Since earliest childhood, Adrian has been desired with a fervor that approaches religious ecstasy. Though his beauty imperils him as a child, Adrian grows out of the cloistered life his fearful family has provided for him and moves to New York City, where he parlaysit--his term for his enduring sex appeal--into a life of feckless comfort sponsored by literally thousands offriends. Adrian's desirability only grows in power through his 20s, and he rides out the city's Covid-19 isolation fully expecting to be able to return to a life where he "can be in love with anyone" as soon as a vaccine is available. Yet, when the masks come off, Adrian discovers that the previously unflagging power ofit has waned, or at least become less universal in its appeal. To his horror, Adrian decides that, like other people, he may be "just as anonymous with his mask on as without." Meanwhile, Mark, a renowned painter and one of Adrian's very few real friends, has weathered the pandemic shutdown in his childhood home in Northern California, attending to both his mother and then his sister as they succumb to a brutal autoimmune condition with which Mark has also been diagnosed. Thirty years older than Adrian and still grieving the loss of his husband, Arturo, Mark is immune toit, and the feelings he has toward Adrian are protective rather than proprietary. However, as Mark's condition worsens and Adrian'sit continues to wane, both men must find the answer to the questions they ask as their worlds inexorably alter (am I memorable? can I be seen?) in the light of the other's enduring care. The novel's conceit is big, its prose attention-grabbing, its sexual joie de vivre propulsive, but, in the end, the most compelling part is the tender nuance of its central characters as they love both each other and the world. The result is a rare gem of a book--afraid of neither joy nor sorrow and patient enough to find the human heart inside all its gorgeous language. A show-stopping novel that carries within it a quiet, steadfast heart. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.